The Outlaw Josey Wales by Forrest Carter Read Free Book Online Page A

dead.
    The realization of the boy’s death came like a physical blow, so that his knees buckled and he actually staggered. He had known they would make it. The riding, the fighting against all odds… they HAD made it. They had whipped them all. Then for fate to snatch the boy from him… Josey Wales cursed bitterly and long. He stretched his arms around the dead Jamie in the saddle… as if to warm him and bring him back… and he cursed at God until he choked on his own spittle.
    His coughing brought back sanity, and he stood for a long time saying nothing. His bitterness subsided into thoughts of the boy who had stubbornly followed him with loyalty, who had died without a murmur. Josey removed his hat and stepping close to the mare placed his arm about the waist of Jamie. He looked up at the trees bending in the wind. “This here boy,” he said gruffly, “was brung up in time of blood and dyin’. He never looked to question na’ar bit of it. Never turned his back on his folks ’ner his kind. He has rode with me, and I ain’t got no complaints…” he paused, “Amen.”
    Moving with a sudden resolve, he untied the saddlebags from the mare and lashed them to his own saddle. He unbuckled the gunbelt from Jamie’s waist and hung it over the roan’s pommel. This done, he mounted the roan and led the mare, with the dead boy still in the saddle, down the ridge toward the campfires. At the bottom of the ridge he crossed a shallow creek and coming up from its bank found himself only fifty yards from the nearest campfire. There were pickets out, but they were dismounted, walking from fire to fire at a slow cadence.
    Josey pulled the mare up beside the roan. He looped the reins back over the head of the horse and tied them tightly around the dead hands of Jamie that still gripped the saddle horn. Now he sidled the roan close, until his leg touched the leg of the boy.
    “Bluebellies will give ye a better funeral, son,” he said grimly, “anyways, we said we was goin’ to the Nations… by God, one of us will git there.”
    Across the rump of the mare he laid a big Colt, so that when fired the powder burn would send her off. He took a deep breath, pulled his hat low, and fired the pistol.
    The mare leaped from the burning pain and stampeded straight toward the nearest campfire. The reaction was almost instantaneous. Men ran toward the fires, rolling out of blankets, and hoarse, questioning shouts filled the air. Almost into the fire the mare ran, the grotesque figure on her back dipping and rolling with her motion… then she veered, still at a dead run, heading south along the creek bank. Men began to shoot, some kneeling with rifles, then rising to run on foot after the mare. Others mounted horses and dashed away down the creek.
    Josey watched it all from the shadows. From far down the creek he heard more gunfire, followed by triumphant shouts. Only then did he walk the roan out of the trees, past the deserted campfires, and into the shadows that would carry him out of bloody Missouri.
    And men would tell of this deed tonight around the campfires of the trail. They would save it for the last as they recounted the tales told of the outlaw Josey Wales… using this deed to clinch the ruthlessness of the man. City men, who have no knowledge of such things, seeking only comfort and profit, would sneer in disgust to hide their fear. The cowboy, knowing the closeness of death, would gaze grimly into the campfire. The guerrilla would smile and nod his approval of audacity and stubbornness that carried a man through. And the Indian would understand.

PART II
     
     

Chapter 8
    The cold air had brought heavy fog to the bottoms of the Neosho, Dawn was a pale light that through weird shapes of tree and brush, made unearthly in the gray thickness. There was no sun.
    Lone Watie could hear the low rush of the river as it passed close by the rear of his cabin. The morning river sounds were routine and therefore good… the